TIME TRAVEL IS MESSING WITH MY HEAD

Here is the other blog, missing in time, and now restored.

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TIME TRAVEL IS MESSING WITH MY HEAD (REPEAT)

Yeah, I know I stopped. Had to. It was killing me. Apparently my time travel was killing other people too. Messing with the timeline is just too precarious.

But you know, there was this song I heard on the radio, and I wanted to know what it was, so I could find it on iTunes and download it for myself.

Connie was on Spring Break and we were coming up the hill from visiting my mom. She was playing her songs on the car radio through the dongle, when some station walked over her music. That happens a lot in Southern California. Too many stations. Suddenly, this awesome, bluesy music came through. Sultry, romantic, slow. The very unhelpful DJ came on afterward with all kinds of information about the piece, except for the name of the song (don’t you hate that?).

Turns out it was the Ray Brown Trio (maybe). But there was a fourth piece in the mix – a horn. Perhaps a clarinete or a saxophone. Hard to say.

Before I could nail down the station ID, Connie was twirling the dial trying to find a clear spot for her iTunes on her iPhone. We were about out of range of the station anyway, going up the El Cajon Pass. So I never got the station name, or the song name. All I got was the time: around 3:42.

That’s when I decided to break my vow about time travel.

But this time it will be different. I am not using a portal to walk through. No. I came up with a tiny port, just big enough to reach my hand through, about eight inches in diameter. What could go wrong?

I have this excellent device, a Carving radio recorder, which would be perfect for getting the info I wanted. It is usually set for five hours, and records whatever is being played on the radio, regardless of how the dial is moved.

First I had to set the tiny portal down low, behind my seat in the car, so neither of us would notice it on our trip yesterday. Once that was set, I can now put my hand through the port with my Carving to try and find the station.

I’ve been at this for hours now. Pick a spot on the dial, put the radio recorder through the port for about ten minutes, at around the time mark, and pull it out. Then play back the recorder to see what I got. You know how many slots there are on the FM dial with all the odd numbers?

I started at 88.1 because I knew that was a Jazz station already (It wasn’t the one I was looking for). I went up the dial from that. 88.3. 88.5. 88.7 – you get the idea. I finally built a jury-rigged handle, because my arm was falling off holding the Carving.

But I got the station! KVCR, Pasadena, 101.1 FM, Mello Jazz and Blues.

But I still do not have the song title.

I have an almost perfect recording of it, though. It is only marred by a fade-out in the middle, when our car went under an overpass.

Now if there was just some way to find the name of a song, just by playing it. Someone should write some software that does that. How hard can it be?

So, about this time travel thing. Why does it work for music on the radio, and not for lottery numbers? Can’t answer that one. None of my more intelligent friends can either.

It is like these portals, large or small, seem to go to a different reality, instead of just to the past or future of our own. I don’t know.

My whole life sometimes seems to be full of anomalies. I can tell, for instance, when I talk of the past. I watch people’s faces closely, to see their reaction to whatever is said. Not everyone remembers the past the same way.

When I mention Mozart being married to Marie Antoinette, I usually get that reaction. It’s the same when I mention the Golden Gate Bridge being painted blue instead of orange.

Or when someone sees my iPad, they look startled, because mine has a black back on it, instead of silver, and there is no silver line around the front face. And I’ve had mine for nearly a year now.

Why the anomalies? Probably because sometime in my lifetime I played with time travel.

I have no memory of it, you know. But I suspect I did at one point or another. And even though I must have went to great lengths to undo all of that, I still know how to make a portal. Even though I said I would never make another. I just did. A tiny one, involving no one by myself and my wife, in our car.

And that did no harm. See?

But I have another anomaly now. Some reader, somewhere, actually copied one of my blogs from a few weeks ago, and sent it to me. I have no memory of writing it, but it makes interesting reading. Judge for yourself. There is no such blog here on MyMac. Never was, as far as I can tell. But my reader-friend said it was there for a couple of days, then it disappeared.

I am putting the article on the end of this blog for you to read.

I know.

Frustration.

I found that not even having the ability to recreate the moment can give you what you want, when all you want is the name of a stupid song. I’ve been told by more than one friend never to mention my Carving radio recorder. Apparently, these devices are supposed to be illegal. But how could it be, when I bought it off the shelf at Walmart some place, or some time ago?

I have gotten some benefit out of all this. I now have a few tracks from the excellent Ray Brown Trio. They console me, until I can find that sultry, sweet, slow, romantic Blues piece – somewhere – sometime – in some lifetime.

Roger

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